Elder Jaren Bryner A LDS Missionary Down Under in Adelaide Australia: This is all about Jesus Christ

Email #81
Area: Oaklands Park
Companion: Elder Turcotte

Excerpts from Mom's email:

This week went by really fast and I'm having a hard time recalling what even happened this week lol. There were a few cool things though I think.

To start off the week as always, we had our District Meetings and this time around we set some Action Items for the zone! I'll send the Action Plan to ya so you can have an idea of what we are doing. So we went to each district and had them give ideas for things they have done to for example find new people to teach. We wrote all of these on the board and each district voted on three things they want to do. Then we went to the next district, showed them the three the last district decided apon, and then got more ideas. In the end, we had a few to decide upon but the ones on the list is now our action plan! It was pretty fun making this and putting it together with each district. In the end, we simply put this together in my phone and sent it out! The goal is that we stay accountable to these action items as a zone so that we are doing as much as we can to achieve more! These are things that have worked in the past and as. We'll a few new ideas that we haven't tried yet, but we have already seen increased success this week!

We then had MLC this week on Friday and we counciled for the whole morning and into the afternoon about what the future holds for the mission and helped President Marquis have a better idea what direction we as a mission can go. Things like the future rules of the mission (because many of them have either been done away with except the whitehandbook of course), new ideas for family history and English classes being implemented here, ect. It has been a huge learning experience for me being able to be apart of this. There were a few occasions where we were pretty clear what we wanted to do, but president then asked us to give an argument for the other side of the coin even if we didn't fully agree that we should do that to get better perspective. Looking at the bigger picture and looking at both sides and outcomes. He was a CEO before for BTU so he has some experience on counciling making decisions with a council. I definitely felt very taught and am greatful for these experiences!

There is this member in the ward that I have to tell ya about! His name is "Chief Captain Romano"! Haha he is the man! He is this old man that is just so interesting! He wears a captain hat and has some unique features! Well on Wednesday every week we make pancakes with him and French toast, then in the weekend he feeds us the hottest food you'll ever eat! Seriously your mouth is on fire! Haha kind of fun!

Something that is still blowing my mind is this whole Mormon Musical thing! There are signs all over the place about it saying "The Mormons are Coming" and stuff like that! I didn't realize that it is this big of a thing honestly! It is pretty funny though and it's getting the word out in its own way. I've had a few people ask if we like to dance or sing and stuff like that hahaha, but people are really cool about it! The tickets are expensive as I hear so probably not going to see it haha.

We have been teaching this couple from Africa recently who are super good! Their names are L... and S......! So they are super genuine! I think they hold real solid potential based on what she was saying. She said that she wants to look more into the Book or Mormon because when she first met us, she prayed and asked God if she should still meet with us and the response she got was "Yes, this is all about Jesus Christ" which was perfect for her because they are both strong Christians. The only concern for them is that we believe a little differently then what they do and she told us that she will have to received real answers from heaven for her to believe different. Not really a concern, but we will be praying heaps for them!

Sorry that is all I got for now.
Love you!

Excerpts from Dad's email:

Hey Dad!

Sorry I probably wont have to much else to tell ya then what I told mom already haha. Well my companion and I get along great still! We have a lot of fun and seem to have the same interests! Gives us heaps to talk about for sure. He has been out for I think 10 months now. He is 19 years old to answer moms question. The weather here is getting nicer as time goes on, but I am not looking forward to the summer months!

This morning was great because we went to the mission office to get the zone's supply needs and while we were there, I got this nice chair for my desk that is really comfortable because one of the senior couples went home and left his chair for me! Made me super happy haha. Plus we got a blender for our flat finally so will be smashing the smoothies again! Did I tell ya about the weights? I don't think I did. So we can lift weights now but if we buy weights, we can't take them with us during transfer. So an inactive member that we met door knocking said we can take some of his weights to our flat and borrow them while he is out of town for a couple of months. So now I can get big 30 min every morning haha. At least might be able to get back some muscle mass I have lost a little bit!

Sorry I don't know what else has happened besides that haha.

Love you heaps!